Life is tough and we all know it. Bad jobs, broken hearts, money troubles permeate our culture. When is the last time you thought to yourself, "I'm truly happy with my life?" If you can even answer that, you're probably one of the fortunate few. We all strive for happiness, but suffering is a part of life.

I've sought happiness in my work for years. Its never easy.

Illustration by Steve Cutts

Having to work to survive means taking jobs you wouldn't want otherwise. Gotta pay those bills! Some of us find happiness in those jobs -- a love of cooking, a passion for a project, a company you believe in, or at least a paycheck that makes it all worthwhile.

My path has been laden with good fortune. I've always managed to get a job. After food-service and coffee shops for 4 years, I graduated college and landed a sweet developer gig working for a web agency. A love of learning kept me working hard, but commercial work was never that satisfying. When they sold the company, I jumped ship. Eventually, I found myself in another developer job only to find myself unhappy and quitting once again. And repeat a couple more times. Even when my salary was QUADRUPLE what I was making during college, I still was discontent. So i quit developing for others and started driving a pedicab.

Trials and Tribulations of a Pedicab driver

Pedicabbing was my first job that gave me the independence I so deeply desired. I had to pay a lot of money ($100 a day, more or less) to lease out the cab, but if I hustled hard enough I might come back with three times that amount! Nobody was there to tell me what to do or how to do it. It was all on my shoulders. Some nights I'd come home with $30 bucks, other nights $300. Every night I'd come home with stories.

As time went on, Uber hit the streets and profits started seriously falling, while daily rent stayed the same. I stressed out over how much I was paying nightly, and how little i was taking home. I was back in the same cycle of despair within a job I had previously loved.

Now, thru a great stroke of LUCK (Labor Under Correct Knowledge), I'm working for myself on my own pedicab, for my own one-cab company. I maintain my own cab and pay my business expenses and still come out better off. Until now, I'd never been able to start and end a shift at my leisure or walk home without paying one-third to one-half of my profits to the pedicab owner. I work hard and finally feel rewarded for it.

But I'm still not satisfied.

Theres so much I havent accomplished yet.

When I left web-development, I only left it as a dayjob. All along I have been studying. Playing with Dogecoin and Ethereum. In turn, learning about Linux and full-stack development. In the past year I've taught myself Golang and Clojure out of sheer curiosity. I could never ignore the growing world of decentralized projects blossoming in front of me.

Even when I'm pedicabbing, I still feel this lil' guy looking at me over the horizon, calling to me:

So I develop. Always. Experimenting, learning languages, trying frameworks. Not always finishing projects, but always getting my hands dirty. Always scheming about how to build some big project.

But it can be so hard to keep sinking endless hours into a big project that isnt paying the bills yet. So many projects end up on the back-burner. The amount of time and commitment a learning project takes is usually a lot greater than I expect.

But nothing helps me get through a project like writing about it and documenting the process.

Steemit gives me hope.

After watching steemit for a week or so, I'm starting to understand how exactly this all works. Dedication to writing, quality content and participation are all key to success. It is time I dedicate myself to documenting my projects and sharing what I learn along the way. And hey, maybe I'll be lucky and make a few bucks in the process.

Pedicabbing is great, but the Great Doge In The Sky will never let me forget there are greater things I need to accomplish.

Hard work will lead to success and happiness.

Steem might just allow me to find those things while working for myself full-time. Someday I'll be as happy and strong as I was as a kid, thanks to an increasingly awesome and supportive global community!